


Nemesis

by sabbig



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Janeway makes mistakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 05:39:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11457117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabbig/pseuds/sabbig
Summary: An episode tag (in a way) to Nemesis.





	Nemesis

He looked awful. 

A terrible part of her disagreed; there was something truly lovely about the scab on his soft lip. There was something beautiful about the dirt and bruises that darkened his temple and right eye. They’d been looking for him for almost two weeks and he was filthy, and beaten, and there was a bloody, barely bandaged gunshot in his thick arm. Guns! Actual blackpowder fired projectiles. 

He looked like something out of a fantasy. 

Again. 

She really needed to get this oldfashioned holonovel obsession out of her head. He’d always met a few too many quiet fantasies of hers, but staring at him from across a biobed wasn’t exactly one of them. 

She was tired of seeing him on a biobed. She’d much rather see him somewhere safer. 

Quieter. 

Maybe her quarters. 

Stop this. 

“Doctor.” She turned away as quickly as she could. The Doctor was preparing a hypospray and dermal regenerator for most of Chakotay’s scrapes and cuts. She was idly curious how one treated a gunshot--unbelievable!--wound. Was the projectile still in his arm? He seemed to be favoring it. Surely there was more damage than would be handled by a simple dermal regenerator. 

“Yes, Captain?” He puttered over, tools prepared on a tray ready for Chakotay’s treatment. 

“What’s the verdict on their mental manipulation? Can it be reversed?” 

“Manipulation?” Chakotay spoke up for the first time since he’d been beamed aboard. 

“Yes,” she turned back to him. The emptiness in his dark eyes hurt to look at, and she couldn’t help but place her hand on his knee. He felt so solid. “We don’t have a lot of information right now, but based on our initial scans and some information provided by the Kradin, the Vori were using some sort of mind control on you.” His thigh was warm, hot under her hand. Was he feverish? The doctor hadn’t said anything. Her hands were suddenly cold against him and she couldn’t help but slip her fingertips around into the crease behind his knee. When she felt the backs of his fingertips brush her knuckles, she removed her hand. 

That was too much. 

“But the good news is that based on my initial scans, it appears that much of their manipulation is pharmacological in nature. Therefore, I should be able to counteract most of it immediately,” the Doctor gestured with his hypo. “And the remaining effects should dissipate as the drugs leave your system.” He spoke directly to Chakotay, now. 

Her escape. 

“Very good. Doctor: keep me updated. I need to contact the Kradin ambassador.” 

She couldn’t resist the hand to Chakotay’s shoulder as she left. It wasn’t an escape. Regardless of how quickly she was walking. 

Luckily, the corridor outside of SIckbay was empty. She had to press her icy hands to her cheeks to cool the desperate tears that wanted to fall. They wouldn't’ have accomplished anything; it was just sentiment. Nothing else. That choking feeling in her throat was exactly why she needed to maintain their parameters. 

She wasn’t quite sure how long she could keep this distance from him. The longer time went on, the harder it became. His sad eyes. His worriment. How close they had gotten on New Earth made so much this so much harder. She missed it. Missed contact with another. She missed quiet company and a confidant. She missed him,

Tuvok was a comfort to her that she could never discredit. Tuvok was a great friend. Tuvok was… steadfast. 

Chakotay was endlessly kind. Chakotay was probably the kindest person on this ship. Honestly, Janeway realized in retrospect that she and Tuvok alone but -together could never have run the ship. Even without the Maquis. Chakotay was the heart of the ship. Janeway may have been it’s spine. She may have been the spine, Tuvok may have been the brain… but Chakotay was the heart. He got to know every crew member, he took endless complaints and personnel situations off her desk, he knew who needed a day off, he knew who would and would not work well on a team together. He knew when she’d not eaten. He knew when she needed to be talked down, or argued with, or called out; and he knew how to do it. He knew how to call upon her conscience. He knew… he knew her. 

He knew her, and when he looked at her there in the Sickbay, he didn’t even recognize her. He seemed so empty. Blank.

What had they done to him? What had she done to him?

She was used to the slightest crinkle of his eyes when he looked at her. Used to the way he would instantly take care of whatever needed to be done. Usually without having to be asked or told. Usually despite her protests that it was her job. 

He just sat on the biobed. He barely seemed to care about his wounds, about the ship. Didn’t seem to care about Kathryn at all. 

He wasn’t right, just now, though. He seemed… empty. Forsaken. Lost. 

God. What had she done? 

 

He ran and she had to follow him. 

“Excuse me, Ambassador.” She made her excuses and followed Chakotay. Neelix was there. Her Ambassador was damn good at his job, and she kept him around exactly for that. 

“Chakotay!” She was going to dress him down. Again. He deserved it. He deserved it after all of the times that he questioned her decisions, after all of the times that he fought against her. 

 

But then he turned around and he looked so lost. It hurt her inside. He looked disgusted, and unsettled, and the curl in his soft lips looked just so wrong there on his face. She couldn’t let him stay that way. How could he fix himself? She couldn’t just abandon him after this and trust it would all sort itself out. She spent too much time with this man at her side. He was constant, steadfast and suddenly, he seemed so broken and unwell. 

She realized then, that as much as she tried to make their relationship about each decision they faced together, it wouldn’t work if she kept trying to keep score. She couldn’t rely on him if she counted and resented every time he hung back after a meeting and asked a few pointed questions that quietly changed her mind an hour later. It didn’t matter how many times his eyes were quietly disappointed in her. It didn’t matter how their discussion of how to handle the Borg and Species 8472 had turned into a shouting match that had stewed for months. It didn’t matter that he made her so angry that she shook and fumed and couldn’t formulate a coherent argument, so angry that she just wanted to hurt him. It wasn’t about the times that they’d disagreed, or the one time he’d literally disobeyed her. It wasn’t about the fact that there was literally no one else she’d rather fight with. 

It was suddenly about all of the times he brought her coffee and a quiet smile. For all of the times he stood in her ready room and just watched her until she had to go back to her quarters and sleep. For all of the times on New Earth that the silence became too much and he wrapped heavy arms around her and let her cry. For the feeling of his his hands against her neck and pressing into tight, angry muscles. It was about him pointing out her Picard impression and making her smile, stop working, eat, rest. It was about the evenings where she refused to let herself go back to her quarters at night because of the pile of padds that needed to be addressed waiting on her desk in her ready room… that had suddenly disappeared. It wasn’t about the time when exhausted, they had fallen asleep on the sofa in her quarters and she had woken in her own bed, jacket and shoes off. 

It wasn’t about the fact that she knew he talked in his sleep, quiet gibberish that revealed some internal world she had no right to analyze. 

And it certainly had nothing to do with how he slept on his side, face smushed against the pillow so that he always had lines on his face upon waking, because it certainly had nothing to do with that, either. 

It was about the fact that he knew her well enough to hold her to her own standards even when she couldn't do so on her own. 

She had gotten lost in the crinkles around his eyes. Waxed poetic about not imagining a day without him. She had touched him again. Again. For the first time since she’d come back from the dead. Realizing that she could feel the thump of his heartbeat under her palm brought back a prickly heat to the base of her scalp. She’d contemplating pressing more of herself against him again. More than just her hand. Right then and there, the thought of wrapping her arms around the solid expanse of him had been almost too delicious, too much. The temptation of falling into the soft whirlwind that surrounded him was too much. 

It was too much because she would always be confronted with the reason she couldn’t jump. She couldn’t lower her confinement fields around him; around anyone. They’d argued about Species 8472, and she’d been spitting mad, and she could only result to hurtful words, and then not thirty minutes later, she’d been confronted with the exact reason she couldn’t turn their relationship into anything more. Thirty minutes later, she’d had to send him onto a Borg ship and he had been one of the few to discover Species 8472. 

And even when he’d come back, they’d fought. They’d fought so much, over everything they could possibly choose to fight over. 

Now, they had survived: those fights, the Borg, 8472, so much more. They had both been wrong and right. It was only a few months ago that she had said any harmful thing to him that he could, and watched him take it, accept it, but turn away from her. That was the one thing that he was never supposed to do, but she had pushed him to it. She missed the heavy, solid presence of him at her left shoulder. It left her feeling cold. Guilty. Sheepish and remorseful in that soulful way that only he could bring her to. 

Tuvok was a constant friend, but Tuvok never fought her the way Chakotay did. He never pushed and fought her the way Chakotay did. Of course, Tuvok would never have considered crossing the boundaries of propriety that Chakotay sometimes seemed oblivious to, but Tuvok’s was also a friendship built on a very Vulcan respect. Chakotay’s was a friendship built on something much more combustible. He walked almost in a different world from her oldest friend. 

She had pushed Chakotay away out of spite, and while he had disconnected himself from her, he’d been fighting demons, lies, ghosts, imaginings--call it what you will--but he’d just come back from a fight that affected him more than anything else in the last few months. He seemed like he couldn’t shake this one, and despite all of the disagreements and strife between them, she couldn’t leave that alone. 

He certainly had never left her to fight her own demons alone. What kind of friend could she call herself if she treated him like a crewmember? If she treated him like she didn’t care? Like his distance wasn’t turning her stomach into knots? 

“Chakotay!” She called him again. 

He finally stopped and turned around. He looked at her and shrugged, his eyes darting everywhere but her face. He was guilty, conflicted. He didn’t seem to want to look at her. That hurt in its own way. She had to remind herself that they had done this to each other. She was as much at fault. How could she really expect him to open up again after the things she’d said? The one very specific thing that she had not said? 

“I wish it were as easy to stop hating as it was to start.” 

She placed her hand on his arm. Then removed it. Did she even have the right to assume that boundary was hers to cross? Physical contact with him was always dangerous, but he didn’t even seem to care this time. Was anything she did at this point worth anything? How could they stop fighting once they started? What could she do? She couldn't meet his eyes anymore, they were too dark. She would get sucked in. She backed off and turned her eyes back to her hands. Adjusted her commbadge. 

It was nothing. 

This effort meant literally nothing. Why had she come out into the corridor after him? What help was she really willing to offer? She had no idea what else she could do for him, though. The brief wish that Voyager had warranted a ship’s counselor struck her. Hell, they could all benefit from it at this point. Maybe herself most of all. 

Janeway had always been a scientist. Sure, command came easy to her. Most command issues were simply a puzzle to be unraveled using psychology and ethics and law. She was charismatic enough to help ease most difficult situations over, she believed stridently in both the mission and the method Starfleet endorsed. She might believe in cooperation and joining together to find the best way for all involved… but maybe she was a bit of a hypocrite. Maybe she only wanted those rules to apply when it was comfortable. 

She'd always had a hard time acknowledging that she had emotions and feelings that affected her the same way they affected others. 

When eating one's words, the medicine never seemed to go down easy. Had she grown too used to being the Captain? To always being right? Or at least unquestioned. Had she put him in an impossible situation? Since she had called their trust of each other into question all of those months ago, there may be no coming back. There were some things that time didn’t seem to soften.

Or erase. 

She did remember, though, his constant reminders and pushes that she stop, slow down, socialize, have dinner, humanize herself. Maybe she could finally give what he had been asking for for years, now. It might not fix anything, but what the hell would it really hurt? 

“We leave orbit tonight at 1800.” She said, “Have dinner with me at 2000?” 

He finally saw her. He looked at her mouth and shook his head. Indeed, he seemed to be saying the same. It might not fix anything, but what would it hurt?

“Sure.” He ran his hand over his mouth. “Yeah, sure.” 

It couldn’t hurt anymore than this did. 

 

But still, he showed up at 2000 hours. 

He showed up out of uniform, in a tee shirt and sweater, and loose canvas pants. He didn’t look like a Maquis, but he certainly didn’t look Starfleet. His hair was still wet from a water shower. 

His eyes were still dark, disconnected from the room around him. 

“I wasn’t sure if you’d actually come.” She said, surprised first at the reality of him there, in her doorway, and then at the fact that those words had actually slipped from her mouth. She considered briefly whether she should be embarrassed about the bluntness of that statement, until he shrugged and came in. 

“Wouldn’t want you to be alone for dinner.” He responded. It seemed soft, like the forgiving kind of joke he would usually have made, but she was reminded of her words before when they had fought. Clearly, she didn’t want to be alone. Clearly, she wasn’t. Clearly, she had left him alone. 

She sighed. Part of her had hoped that they could come at this from a more forgiving angle, but she’d seen to it otherwise. 

She punched in the final command on her replicator and shot it a glance, hoping it would obey and actually shoot out an acceptable rendition of the eggplant parmesan she’d requested. She slapped the kitchen towel down on her small table and sighed. 

“No?” She realized that her scowl may be too much. She hadn’t asked him here to fight. But the fist planted on her hip was most likely giving the exact opposite message. “No, but I don’t really want you to be alone either.” 

 

“Well, I could go.” He offered, and gestured towards the door. 

“I suppose you could. I still have some of the toffa ale that Neelix found a few years ago, though.” she wasn't actually wearing get communicator in order to fidget with it . Ask she merely shook her hands out before grabbing a bottle. “Wouldn't want you to miss out on this, either, though.”

“Well” he sighed. “What are we having?” 

The replicator chirped and she smiled. 

“If all goes to plan? Eggplant parmesan.” The pan sitting in the replicator bay smelled good enough. THere was a fragrant, steamy aroma wafting out of the corner, and nothing looked burnt. She sat it on the table. 

“Smells good.” He commented. “Have you finally learned to stop tinkering with it?” 

She glanced up to see a smile so small that it didn’t quite bring out his dimples. But it was there. That was good. It sure as hell wasn’t perfect, but it was good. 

“What can I say? I decided to test the hypothesis that I picked you to be my first officer for a reason and that maybe I should listen to you.” 

His eyes flicked up to her face and he studied her for a moment. His eyebrows lifted slowly and he tilted his head in that particular way that he had when he was surprised and didn’t quite know what to say. 

“Well. What’s your decision based on this investigation?” He glanced down at the pan of food and back at her. She could almost glimpse a dimple. There, on the right side of his mouth. It was almost a relief to see it.

As the dimple appeared full fledged, she realized he had asked a question. That was an interesting development. WHy did they always end up here, grinning awkwardly at each other? 

“Oh. Well, let’s find out.” She pulled out some plates and forks, passed him a serving spoon. 

“That’s why I came.”


End file.
